We’ve Made Our Mark on Berlin

We have been away now for exactly one month. I know I know, many of you are wondering if we are home sick yet. Well, that answer is NO!!!! We are still having an amazing time and haven’t killed one another yet. Although, I must admit I do miss everyone, however I wouldn’t use the word homesick.

Tina, Cher and I left for Berlin two days earlier then the boys. We decided to spend 3 days in West Berlin then the next 3 days in East Berlin. Spending time with just the girls has been a lot of fun and we have met a ton of people. When entering Berlin my expectations were low. Knowing some of the history about Berlin from our high school days set a real pessimistic point of view for me. Learning the history of WWII and the holocaust of Amsterdam and how it affected the city lead us into the intense history of Germany. However, Germany has proven to be a country where we met a number of people and had an amazing time.

ToP MEmorAabLE MoMMentS of BeRliN!!!!

1. Playing Tag in the Holocaust Memorial

Watch the videos attached to the website (or above). One thing I hope never to forget is the face that someone makes right before you tag them and there it. Unfortunately the only person I saw make that face was Kup, but all and all I f**ing rocked at tag. This was one of the funniest nights I have had in all of Europe.

2. Pub Crawl

Tina, Cher and I went on a Pub Crawl that was awesome. Now I do know that Pub Crawls through the tourist centers are very clichéd, but where else are you gonna find 200 people who speak English. We met a ton, and yes I mean a ton of amazing people. Tina had a blast and was completely in her element, just look at the pics below.

3. Signing our Name on the Berlin Wall

I am completely and utterly against taking part of the Berlin Wall home. If everyone who visits Berlin takes a piece of the wall home with them in 20 years what will be left of it. Plus, I am sorry why take the wall with you when you can leave a piece of you with the wall. If you guys ever go to the gallery look for the mark that the Poccia Twins left. If you have a problem identifying it, well its on the East Gallery side of the wall and says Poccia Twins.
The picture above is of what I thought spelled Poccia. We DID NOT tag this. I spotted it within seconds of looking at the wall. I thought it was awesome.

4. Breakfast

Breakfast is a meal in the day that 9 out of 10 of us take for granted. Infact when I am home I rarely ever eat breakfast. That was until we stayed at this hostel in Berlin. There breakfast was as good as Cher described. We only paid 9 Euro a night for the hotel, but the breakfast should have been 9 Euro alone. A bonus side to going to hostel that serves an amazing breakfast is that it forces us to get up be for noon. We even had the idea of getting up at 7 am to eat the buffet go out and see the sites then come back by 11 am to have lunch with the free buffet. Although, we weren’t that ambitious, but we did wake up by 10 to get that full hour of eating in.
I think after us they may be raising the rates of the rooms.

5. My Ring

One day in Berlin Cher and I (and a few other people) were walking through this flea market where I spotted this ring that I absolutely loved. Since this trip we are taking is expensive one way I try to conserve money is to not buy many souvenirs. Well, I loved this ring. The flea market was going on the next day, so I decided to think about it before making the purchase. Come to find out later, Cher had Adriane, a friend we met, keep me occupied at another booth while she went to buy the ring. The entire time we were at the market I kept asking if I should haggle, do they do that here or should I just buy it. The entire time I am talking about it Adriane is down playing it, trying to keep my from buying the ring. I didn’t catch on at all. The next day, after the tag game and the bar Cher surprised me with the ring and I was shocked. Def. one of the nicest gestures. I was almost in tears.

Thanks Cher!!!

6. The Concentration Camp, Sachsenhsn

I have been to the concentration Dachau and that it was so interesting. Sachsenhsn was a lot like Dachau, but had a lot of difference to it. Coming from a designing and architectural stand point I found the design and intent of the concentration camp very interesting. I wouldn’t call this place fun, but it was very interesting.



The one thing that we tend to be doing in every cit is missing the public transposrt. While the concentration camp closed at 6 so does the public bus. We found our selves walking to the train station to get back to Berlin.

I did have fun convincing everyone that the information center was closed though and that now can get their ids back and we were going to have to go cak tomorrow.

Only a few people believed me… but it was still funny. Huh… maybe that’s why we missed the bus.

7. Traveling with the Best People Ever

Spending so much time with the same people everyday and night might take a toll on any relationship. One of my absolutely favorite things to do on this trip in EVERY city is sitting around and bullshitting. Even in the most boring situations we all seem to make each other laugh. There is rarely on hour when someone isn’t laughing. I know the trip isn’t over yet and we still have time to form hatred and irritation tward each other, but for now… well lets just say we are all entertained!!!

So I know that this is the part of the blog is what everyone is waiting for. Do you like culture and history? Cause there is a massive amount in Berlin. Below is just a glimpse at what we learned.

Berlin was home to much of the worlds conflicts, and a base for all of us to learn from.

Below is a picture of the monument at the concentration camp. The triangles at the top signify the 18 countries where the victims of the concentration camp were from. Each Triangle is different and is meant to symbolize the different triangles each prisoner was suppose to wear. Each prisoner was assigned a certain triangle according to the reason why they were imprisoned (homosexuals, Jewish etc…). The men at the bottom of the monument where re worked by the sculpture many times. The Soldier positioned in the center is to liberating the prisoners on either side. The designer originally had these prisoners as being week and frale. However, the people of Germany didn’t like how they were being portrayed and had the sculpture rework the figures. Some people misinterpret the statue as the prisoners of the concentration camp being lead by a Nazis soldier.

Below is the central church of Berlin This church was built by Germany to compete aesthetically with the church of St. Peters in Rome and St. Pauls in London (if you look at our London Blog you will see the Church of St. Pauls). However, this church was little too Baroque in style and was not found beautiful by many people. Personally I feel that it would be a shame not to appreciate this architecture. It is very impressive.

The TV Tower

Germany built the TV Tower in the 1960's to signify their accomplishments and advancements in technology. However, when they designed the big sphere to be placed on the rod, the contractors didn’t know who to build it. In fact it was so difficult they had to call in not one, not two, not three, but four Swedish engineers. A side note: Berlin at one point decided that no place would display a cross. Well. When they built the TV Tower when the sun hits it there is a cross reflected. Germany brought in every designer they could to solve this problem. It was like the pope giving them one big middle finger. At the end of it Germany couldn’t figure out how to solve this. So in the end I guess it was just a plus.

Ok… ok.. I know I am dragging this on, but really Berlin has so much information and I really want to tell you all about it. However, if I do that then what am I going to talk about at home.

Since I always like to end my blog with a laugh, I will tell you about us arriving in Berlin.

The further east we travel the harder it seems to understand the language. German is a language which none of us are familiar with. When we arrived in Berlin it was at the bus station a little outside the city center. We were tired and just wanted to get to a hostel to relax. We had just gotten the subway map from the information station and they didn’t speak English. We were left to our own devices. We went on a search for the Subway and followed the signs for the S. When we got to the “fork in our road” we needed to decide which direction to go in. Well… we were looking for about 10 min for which directions the train was running to Ausgang. We couldn’t find it on the map. So we went on to search for the other line to see if we could find that station on the map. Finally we found a woman in a train station who told us to go back towards the way we came. However, we were faced with the dilemma of heading to that same destination of Ausgang. After a few min of deliberation we decided to go towards this destination. When we went up the stairs we were outside. A little way down the road we saw the S line. We still couldn’t find Ausgang on the map, but that didn’t matter because we found the train heading to the zoo. When we got to the hotel I was walking to the room when I observed the emergency door that had two words written on it. One was Exit and the other Ausgang.

Yeah … not our brightest moment. I will leave you with as much German as I know, Auf Wiedersehen (and just recently Ausgang) !!!!

~Christina